


Like that you're broke

by gerti



Series: The Cyberpunk Tenten collection no one asked for [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: And I guess we're postponing the actual story so I can write about Sakura and Tenten kissing, But I got hit with this concept, Don't worry it's short, F/F, I just particularly enjoy this ship, Yeah this isn't going to make much sense unless you read the first one ngl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 19:25:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14600049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gerti/pseuds/gerti
Summary: Addendum to 'Twenty perfect shots', in which Sakura and Tenten kiss.





	Like that you're broke

_ I like that you’re lonely, _

_ Lonely like me. _

_ I could be lonely with you. _

 

Haruno Sakura is many things. A genius mechanic. A terrifying brawler. A middle-class nobody who no-one ever looked twice at. She’s the girl who wasted half her life aspiring to nothing more than a pretty smile and a decent job. 

 

She can scrap together an arm from an old engine block and a wad of  _ gum _ , and for the longest time she never once considered she might be something special. 

 

(In a few years she’ll perform a delicate surgical operation, under fire, with one hand. The other hand will be too busy shooting half-a-dozen people to keep them the  _hell_ away from her patient.)

 

Tenten meets her on her eighteenth birthday, after dragging a trail of bloody footsteps across half the city to collapse in front Tsunade’s front door. Imagine her surprise when, rather than a drunken blonde legend, she finds herself looking up into a pair of shockingly green eyes. For a minute she thinks that whoops- She’s knocked on the wrong door and now she’s about to bleed out on some perfectly innocent girl’s doorstep.

 

Then the bullet hole drilled into her lung catches up to her, and she doesn’t think much of anything at all. 

 

She wakes again to the sight of a woman she’s never met, pale-faced and eyes red with tears. 

 

She looks like a wreck. 

 

(She’s just spent the last five hours performing an impromptu operation she hasn’t even been trained for. Unlike Tsunade’s work, this one will scar.)

 

In a week Sakura will become a fixture at Tsunade’s office. A brand new apprentice to scurry around and do errands when Tenten isn’t available, and also have the basics of medicine and prosthesis rammed into her skull during every other waking moment. Even hungover and surly, Tsunade knows better than to let talent like that go to waste, and despite her initial protest Sakura is a scarily quick study. She takes to the lessons like a fish to water, absorbing knowledge that makes Tenten’s head spin with ease. 

 

She quickly takes over as Tenten’s primary caretaker, Tsunade being  _ more  _ than happy to toss all of that work onto her unlucky student’s shoulders. Tenten can’t count the number of nights spent sitting quietly in that disorganized operating room, watching as Sakura (Eyes dark with exhaustion but hands still steady. Every time she has to stop herself from reaching out to brush those few stubborn strands of hair back from her face-) sews or bandages or welds some new hurt closed. 

 

It stings just a little to be passed over so easily. Tenten knows she’s absolutely useless when it comes to all of that medical jargon, had thought herself past the point of caring about maybe one day being Tsunade’s apprentice. 

 

But watching some other girl fill those shoes… It’s hard not to be a little jealous. 

 

It doesn’t help that Sakura doesn’t seem to have anything resembling a  _ spine  _ in her body. It’s honestly kind of depressing just how easy she is to push around.

 

_ ‘Sakura make some coffee.’ _

 

_ ‘Sakura clean the office.’ _

 

_ ‘Sakura pick up some booze.’ _

 

All this and more, met with a smile and an “Okay!” full of false cheer. The girl is a pushover no matter  _ how  _ busy she might be at the time, and that’s just  _ one _ of the many things Tenten can list about the girl that gets on her nerves. She spends many a night lamenting to Shizune, or Lee. Even  _ Orochimaru  _ gets to hear a few of her complaints about the new girl at the clinic. 

 

It takes time to break her of the habit, peeling away that thickly woven veneer of niceness like it’s a particularly obnoxious cocoon. Sometimes Tenten wonders if it’s even possible, maybe Sakura is just like that. Just a girl destined to be a walking doormat that can’t say no to people. 

 

(Sometimes when Tenten berates her though, Sakura will get this look in her eye. Like she’s heard all of this before. Tenten offers her silent condolences to whoever it was that first tried to break this girl out of her shell, because  _ god  _ is it a challenge.)

 

And then one day the dam breaks, and Sakura staggers into the office with a bloodied lip, four cracked knuckles, and a triumphant story of how she’d beat the absolute  _ shit  _ out of some punks outside the gas station. Then she collapses into a chair and Tenten has to fight down a proud grin of her own as she unpacks their first-aid kit. It’s a strange turn of events, being the one patching up  _ Sakura’s  _ wounds rather than the other way around. 

 

Glancing up at the spark that’s lit in her eyes though, Tenten can’t help but think it’s a good change. 

 

That day becomes the catalyst that transforms Sakura before their eyes. Gone is the stuttering girl who couldn’t refuse a request, now she can even glare  _ Tsunade  _ into submission when she’s grumbling about picking up more beer. It’s a feat that does funny, awful things in the bottom of Tenten’s stomach. 

 

A month after that Tenten comes staggering through the door high off the thrill of a particularly dangerous job well-done, and she kisses Sakura square on the mouth. No warning, no nothing. For a single second afterwards the thought that ‘maybe she’s fucked up’ enters her mind at the sight of Sakura’s dumbfounded stare. 

 

Then Sakura takes her face in her hands and kisses her back until they fall into Tsunade’s desk and scatter empty beer cans across the room. 

 

A week later they fall into bed. 

 

It’s nothing Tenten has ever done before, not even something she’d ever really considered. Because while she could appreciate looking at people occasionally, aesthetically speaking, the idea of a relationship had never held much appeal. That was something other people did, people who  _ didn’t  _ spend so many of their waking moments unsure of whether or not they’d live to see tomorrow. 

 

Some people are just special though. People like Sakura, with her soft face and her steady fingers, always ready for a fight but equally ready to spend a quiet evening with a cup of hot chocolate and a good book. They spend their days working for Tsunade, stealing moments when they think she’s not looking- She knows of course, though, always rolling her eyes and grumbling and tossing scraps of metal at them when Tenten gets a little too fresh. 

 

She really can’t help it though, not when Sakura is concentrating over a tricky piece of machinery and looking prettier than ever.  _ Someone  _ needs to lean over her shoulder and wipe the smudge of grease from her cheek, and if that someone should sneak a quick kiss in the process- Well. She doesn’t think that justifies a chunk of metal to the back of her skull.

 

(It helps that Sakura always  _ -always _ \- offers to kiss it better. And at that Tsunade just throws her hands up in disgust and leaves the room.)

 

Sometimes their nights are spent on the town, learning the streets inside and out and learning each other just as well. Sometimes they spend them indoors, working their way through Sakura’s  _ extensive  _ collection of colorful bath bombs. And sometimes they just sit on the fire escape outside her apartment, trading stories, drinks, and stupid dares until they fall asleep in a pile of limbs on the couch. 

 

In the mornings Sakura counts every one of her scars, and for once Tenten isn’t ashamed of just how long that takes. 

 

Like all things though, even these halcyon days must come to an end. As breakups go it’s relatively benign, creeping in like the shadow of dusk over the landscape. Sakura works longer hours, Tenten begins to spend more and more nights away on jobs. Every other night becomes once a week. Then once a month. And before either of them know it they just… drift apart. 

 

By the time Sakura runs off to join up with some blonde vagabond and his revolution, it’s all but officially over. At least she left a note pinned to the desk for Tenten to find. 

 

She’ll fold up the piece of paper to keep in the back of her closet where it will be safe. Just another memory, but a cherished one. They’ll see each other again someday, of that much she’s certain. 

**Author's Note:**

> I may have gotten a little side-tracked with this one. Whoops.   
> Don't worry though, the actual chapter is almost done so it shouldn't be much longer (I hope)


End file.
